Few would have expected 2011’s reboot film Rise of the Planet of the Apes to spawn one of the best movie franchises of the last decade, but thanks to incredible special effects and a gripping cast of characters, that’s exactly what it did

Few would have expected 2011’s reboot film Rise of the Planet of the Apes to spawn one of the best movie franchises of the last decade, but thanks to incredible special effects and a gripping cast of characters, that’s exactly what it did

Likely an attempt to increase sales of digital films, multiple movie studios are looking into adding new release films and perhaps older content to Disney’s Movies Anywhere service. The digital download service lets consumers keep all film purchases in a single location and access those movies on televisions, laptops or mobile devices using the Movies Anywhere app.

Over the last seven years, the majority of the movie industry has relied on Ultraviolet to store film purchases. Disney, one of the few holdouts, ignored Ultraviolet in favor of developing a first party download service called Movies Anywhere.

The studio has been aggressive about supporting purchases from digital retailers like iTunes, Amazon, Fios by Verizon, Vudu and Google Play; ideal for consumers that like to use multiple services for making purchases. Oddly, the company dropped support for purchases through Microsoft Movies & TV last month, possibly due to lack of interest from consumers.

Major studios interested in joining Disney’s service include 20th Century Fox, Warner Bros. and Universal Pictures. It’s possible that the studios will announce formal plans to join Disney’s service by the end of the week. Lionsgate and Paramount are also rumored to be interested, but are likely waiting to see if the other studios have any luck with the service. Paramount Pictures is a lone holdout, due to a financial disagreement.

All studios are likely looking for ways to boost revenue as sales of physical media like DVD and Blu-ray continue to slump. Digital movie sales grew by about eight percent over the last year while physical disc sales fell by about ten percent. Consumers are flocking to subscription based services like Netflix while sales of box-office tickets are falling, specifically down by five percent year over year.

Of course, Disney’s decision to remove all Star Wars and Marvel films from Netflix in 2019 could be related to Movies Anywhere. While Disney has plans to launch a subscription based streaming service competing with Netflix, isolating Disney, Pixar, Marvel and Lucasfilm content on Movies Anywhere may ultimately increase revenue from digital film purchases over time.

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